Why Are Festival Line-Ups So Dull This Year?

[Dejan]

So- what is going on with the line-ups, in particular the headliners this year?

This is bad for my health- it actually induces a narcoleptic sleep attack every time the Killer Kings Of Oasis are confirmed to headline. When did festivals become an inseparable generic mess?

Come on- Your Grandma could have won a bet on who would be headlining Glastonbury about six months before it was announced. Actually, many of the bands playing there might be more to her taste than yours - I guess Eavis really wasn’t messing when he said that he was reverting back to ‘traditional’ headliners after the so called Jay Z controversy, a genuinely thrilling moment that won’t be happening anywhere this year.

The only explosive thing about Leeds / Reading will be when those fuckwits inevitably blow up the portaloos again; a sad ritual that now echoes the desperate state of the line-up.

Bloc Party are playing again in EXACTLY the same slot as last year, always the penultimate bridesmaids. There are two problems with this:

A)I know that we’re not exactly living in Halcyon days for the music industry and everyone needs to get paid but I can’t help but feel that we’re not getting anything unique or exclusive.

B)They are the dullest, most heinously vapid live band I’ve ever seen, an absolute charisma vacuum so wide that you shouldn’t go near the main stage for fear of falling into a massive black hole and having your personality sucked from you by vampires with asymmetrical haircuts.

Even the likes of Latitude have seemingly given up trying to conjure up a sense of occasion and ATP dropped the ball with their ‘vs. the fans’ event by not allowing people to vote for bands who had played an ATP event before. Which is fine, except hold on- every underground rock band on the planet have already played so everyone started voting for acts that ATP apparently “Couldn’t afford”. Really? Where did that £150 a head go, then? Did Butlins need waterslide maintenance or something?

Dear festival organisers: Please get back to taking some risks or the closest we’ll be getting to your fields of splendid noise will be the grating, featureless hologram voice of Edith Bowman. And nobody wants that.

(gigwise)

[deaths_friend]

people need to realise that most of the time the best acts at a festival are not on the main stage, in most cases you will find them on the smaller side stages. thats the beauty of a festival. its not about seeing the stadium trotting rock act whose songs get played every 5mins on the radio, its about discovering new artists and new forms of music.

the writer of that article (off gigwise?) needs to move away from the main stage and go check out whats happening elsewhere. maybe then he'll realise that festivals get bigger and better every year because there is soo much great young talent on show.

and UK festivals always have shitty line ups but awesome atmosphere. the European festivals have awesome lineups and crazy atmospheres.

[Black Rose]

So the bands announced as headliners for Glastonbury ain't 'amazing' according to that post, however there has been about 15 bands confirmed but still tickets have sold out, not to the touts but to people who will be going

[Space Cadet]

*Yawns* Music critics need to get off their high horse, stop whining, and stop with the superlatives, because frankly, everyone they talk about can't be the dullest/most bland/ most vapid/ worst... ect. band they've ever seen or heard. It defeats the whole purpose of the -est if they use it too much.

I might actually care what one of these guys thought when they started ranting about large swaths of the music scene in general, except that they all contradict each other completely almost all of the time. Since they can't all be right, I've chosen to believe none of them are. It's a very liberating feeling.

There is probably no perfect festival, so stop worrying and enjoy your show/life.



P.S. Bloc Party were awesome when I saw them live. Not as good as Stars, but awesome all the same.

[Pseudonym]

You said it man.